Page 80 of Hitting the Gap

“Thanks, I’ll call you later.” Gonzo grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. With the other hand, he grabbed his suitcase and wheeled it behind him.

A feeling of ease settled over her as she watched him walk toward the entrance. For the first time in longer than she cared to admit, she felt happy. Truly happy. She tossed the car keys up in the air and caught them. Today was going to be a good day.

Chapter 18

The travel schedule had never bothered him before this season. In fact, it was always something he really enjoyed. But as he made his way back to his empty hotel room after losing the game against St Louis, he found he just wished he was in his own bed, preferably with Bailey wrapped around him. Outside of the bedroom, she wasn’t much of a toucher. She’d always said she thought PDA was stupid. He was working on changing her opinion on that one. So the fact that she wrapped around him like a vine while she slept had been a surprise. An incredibly sexy surprise.

He tapped his room card against the panel and waited for the little click to show it was unlocked before pushing against the door. He kicked off his shoes and plodded through the empty hotel room.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the Facetime app. Bailey’s name sat at the top of the list. Gonzo pressed her number and waited impatiently for it to connect.

Finally, she picked up. The second Bailey’s face filled the screen, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hey.” She smiled into the screen. “Tough loss tonight.”

“If we keep playing like this, we might not even make the playoffs.”

“You will. You’ve got time. How’s the leg?”

He pulled up his pant leg and angled the camera to show her the bruising that was already visible on his calf.

“I can’t believe they didn’t eject Caldwell for that,” she snarled. “Any idiot could see that he went into that slide spikes up.”

“He says it was an accident.”

“Well then, he’s a liar. All they had to do was pull up the replay.” Anger flared in Bailey’s eyes.

Gonzo bit back a grin at how offended she was on his behalf. He enjoyed knowing she felt protective of him.

“It’s all good. It didn’t break the skin.” He flexed his foot and his calf cramped. Broken skin or not, the fucking charlie horse it had left behind hurt like a bitch.

“What was that little wince for?” Bailey asked.

Shoot, he hadn’t meant for her to see that. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

“How sore is it? Truthfully.”

He flexed his foot again and the bruise made itself known. “It doesn’t feel great.”

“Well, it’s not bubble bath, but I put a dead sea mineral bath salt in your bag.”

“You did what?”

She looked down instead of into the camera. “I didn’t want to pack a liquid in your bag, but I thought you might miss taking your nice baths when you were on the road.”

The embarrassment on her face was so fucking cute. “Bailey, look at me.”

She raised her head and looked at the screen.

“Thank you.”

She shrugged. “I know it’s not the same as your fancy bath stuff here or your hot tub, but I figured it was better than nothing. It’s just a couple of packages of bath salts. It’s in the front zipper pouch of your case.”

He hopped off the bed and went over to his suitcase. He unzipped the pocket and pulled out two packages. Gonzo looked at the first one. Dead sea mineral bath. Nice. The second package said it was a juniper muscle soak. Fuck, that sounded like heaven. “Thanks, Bay. I don’t usually have a bath at the hotel, but I’m gonna tonight since I’m on my own. Ryan and Pete are meeting up with a buddy from high school and who knows what Kia and Smitty are up to.”

“Mmm, right, Ryan and Pete have that dinner and Kia and Smitty are doing their kid-free weekend.”

“Yeah, not sure how much alone time they’ll get between the tattoo convention and games, but hey, at least I can have a bath.”

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